


Tom Seaver

by Robin Hood (kjack89)



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Animal Death, Animals, Developing Relationship, M/M, POV First Person, POV Outsider, Veterinary Clinic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 07:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16782523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/Robin%20Hood
Summary: “I'm Dr. Jane Herriot,” I said, trying to keep my voice pleasant. “And while you’re not Det. Carisi, that is his cat.”Rafael looked down at the kitten still squirming in his arms. “Do you remember every kitten that comes through your practice?” he asked mildly before depositing the kitten on the exam table.“No, but I just did a round of vaccines on Tom Seaver last week.”Rafael’s expression darkened. “Of course he named the damned cat Tom Seaver,” he seethed, tossing a baleful expression at the kitten before switching it to me. “Do you know who Tom Seaver is?”“Best player the Mets have ever seen,” I answered promptly, less because I was much of a baseball fan myself and more because I had already heard this from Sonny when he brought the kitten in initially.Rafael scowled. “I’m a Yankees fan,” he told me dryly. “Not that I care much about baseball but Son— Det. Carisi does love to torture me.”





	Tom Seaver

**Author's Note:**

> I was stuck waiting for my car to get an oil change for over three hours yesterday and the only thing I had to read was James Herriot's 'All Creatures Great and Small'. Couple that with the loss of my own beloved cat a few months ago and, well, that led to this.
> 
> Exceedingly self-indulgent. Written in an attempt to somewhat emulate James Herriot's style, so not at all like what I normally write because why not.
> 
> Usual disclaimer. Please be kind and tip your fanfic writers in the form of comments and/or kudos.

“Dr. Herriot!”

The thick Staten Island accented voice was raised above the cacophony of barking dogs in their kennels, and I made my way out of the back room of my veterinary clinic, already smiling. “Det. Carisi,” I said in greeting. “What are you doing here? Surely you’re not back on K-9 duty.”

The detective in question grinned, flashing his dimples as he did. “Nah, I haven’t had to deal with that since making detective, thank God. But, uh, I’m dogsitting for one of my colleagues, and Frannie decided to be a very bad girl—” He tried to school his voice into something stern, and I had to hide a smile. Det. Carisi couldn’t sound stern if he tried, at least not when talking to a dog, and judging by the way the dog sitting at his feet was grinning up at him, her tongue lolling out of her mouth, she agreed. “—and, uh, she ate a tie. Like a necktie.”

“Well, bring her on back and I’ll take a look,” I told him, leading the way back to the examination room.

I had met Det. Dominick “Call me Sonny” Carisi Jr. several years previously, when he was fresh out of the police academy and I had just graduated from veterinary school and was working as an assistant at a practice on Staten Island. He had been given the task of bringing the K-9 dogs in for their annual exam, one of what I could only assume was the many hazing rituals he’d undergo during his career. The K-9 dogs were usually fairly well behaved, especially when with their handlers, but as soon as one of them got wind of how inexperienced the rookie holding all their leashes was, well, let’s just say that Sonny spent most of his day chasing the dogs down and bringing them back to the clinic.

“Are you sure I can’t help you?” I had asked, somewhat desperately, as he carted the fourth dog into the clinic.

He had flashed me that same grin. “Thanks, but I got it,” he had told me before jogging out of the clinic after the next dog, calling over his shoulder, “It builds character!”

And that it sure did. After that fateful day, I normally only saw Sonny at Mass on Sundays, which he attended with his parents, but no matter the circumstances, he was always friendly, clearly no worse for the wear after his bit of hazing. He had left Staten Island for a different borough right around the time I left to take over as the primary vet at my own clinic in Manhattan, and I had lost contact with him after that.

But then years later, I had been walking a particularly stubborn bulldog with a pronounced limp whose cause I was trying to diagnose, when I heard that Staten Island accent calling, “Jane! Dr. Herriot!”

It turned out Det. Carisi had just moved to the same neighborhood as my practice, and while his job kept him at work for crazy hours, we still saw each other around every now and then. He met my wife, and my own dogs, and I would tease him, as he was on the floor rubbing my dog’s belly, asking when he was going to break down and get a dog of his own. He had just laughed. “You’re as bad as my ma harping on about wanting grandkids. It’ll happen when or if it happens.”

Thus far, it hadn’t happened, either on the dog front or the grandchild front for Mrs. Carisi, which is why I wasn’t exactly expecting to see Sonny Carisi in my veterinary clinic, especially two hours before it was slated to open. Luckily, both he and the dog he was bringing in seemed in good spirits, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to start my day with a friendly face and a hopefully unobstructed digestive tract.

“Put her up on the table,” I ordered, and Sonny lifted the decidedly not small dog up with ease. “You said her name was Frannie?” He nodded, for the first time his brow creasing with something like worry as he watched me introduce myself to Frannie, who seemed as friendly as Sonny. “Good girl,” I soothed, running a hand down to her stomach, gently palpating to see if I could feel a mass or blockage. “Well, I don’t feel anything,” I reported, switching to petting Frannie and grinning when her tail thumped happily against the metal exam table. “I can run some tests, but I’d say as long as she keeps eating and drinking normally, the chances are that she’ll pass it naturally. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve seen dogs pass without any damage.”

“Right,” he said, wrinkling his nose at the thought and reaching out to stroke Frannie’s head. “Uh, how long do you think it’ll take for her to, uh, pass it?”

“Hard to say,” I told him. “Could be a few hours, could be a couple days. Why?”

Sonny sighed, and I could see a blush creeping up the back of his neck. “I don’t really wanna have to explain this to Amanda,” he muttered. “Frannie’s ma, I mean. She gets back from visiting Georgia in two days.”

I raised an eyebrow. “She’ll understand,” I told him reassuringly. “Every dog owner has had experience with their dog eating something they’re not supposed to, trust me.”

“No, uh, it’s not that,” Sonny said, flushing even redder. “The problem isn’t that Frannie ate a tie. It’s that, uh, it wasn’t my tie.”

“Ah,” I said, piecing together what Sonny wasn’t saying. Frannie had eaten someone else’s tie, someone whose presence in Sonny’s apartment would clearly merit explanation. “And I assume Amanda doesn’t know that you’re seeing anyone.”

“Not so much, no.”

“And she’ll recognize that the tie isn’t yours?”

Sonny’s blush again deepened. “Not just that, but she’ll probably recognize who the tie actually belongs to. And the situation is, uh, complicated enough without that.”

I pursed my lips to keep from laughing. “Well, what I can do is give Frannie a little something to help speed the journey and keep her here for observation.”

Sonny brightened. “Really?” he asked, before hesitating. “It’d be completely safe, right? I don’t wanna have you give Frannie unnecessary medication just because I’m an idiot.”

“Perfectly safe, entirely natural,” I assured him.

Sonny let out his breath in a _woosh_. “You’re the best,” he told me. “What do I owe you?”

“Nothing,” I told him. “It’s on the house. But it comes with a condition.”

“Anything.”

“I want to meet the guy who the tie belongs to.”

Sonny’s smile disappeared so suddenly it was like someone turned the light off. “Anything but that.”

I shook my head. “Those are my terms, take ‘em or leave ‘em and risk having to explain all of this to Amanda.”

“You’re evil.”

“I’m a happily married veterinarian whose daily excitement tends to center around canine bowel obstructions,” I told him dryly. “Cut me a little slack.”

Sonny sighed, but I could already tell he was going to cave. “Fine,” he said. “But only if this thing with him goes beyond last night.” He glared at Frannie. “Something which I’d be a lot surer of if the damn dog hadn’t eaten his tie.”

“I’m sure he’ll forgive you,” I assured him.

Sonny only half-smiled. “You don’t know him like I do.”

“Maybe not, but what I do know is that you should get to work and let me see what I can do for Frannie.”

“Fair enough,” Sonny said, petting Frannie once more before stepping away. “I, uh, I dunno what time I’ll be done with work today—”

“I’ll be around until late anyway,” I told him. “And if you’re too late, you’ve got my number. Just give me a call and I’ll come let you in. Ok?”

“Ok.”

Sonny patted Frannie once more before taking his leave, and I turned back to the still happily-grinning dog. “Well, girl, it’s just you and me,” I told her. “What do you say we get your digestion moving?”

Sifting through animal feces is one of those unglamorous parts of veterinarian work they don’t warn you about when you’re in school, but that day, I almost didn’t mind it, given the story that had led up to it. And a little after six that evening with only a little bit of assistance, Frannie passed what certainly looked like a necktie.

I pulled the obviously orange tie from the rest of the poop and deposited it into a baggie for Sonny to deal with later. Before I closed the bag, I used my gloved fingers to rub a bit of the feces from the tag, which told me that the tie was made from Italian silk, and I held the baggie up, looking at it critically.

I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of man Sonny Carisi was dating who would be wearing a tangerine-colored Italian silk necktie.

And I knew I couldn’t wait to meet him.

* * *

My opportunity came sooner than expected, when the same necktie showed up in the waiting room of my practice a couple of months later. I didn’t recognize the man wearing it, but I did recognize the tie, and I also recognized the small, gray-striped long-haired kitten clutched awkwardly in his arms.

“You’re not Det. Carisi,” I said in greeting after the man came back to the exam room.

The man blinked. “I am not,” he said, with a hint of derision. “I’m Rafael Barba.”

“Dr. Jane Herriot,” I said, trying to keep my voice pleasant. “And while you’re not Det. Carisi, that is his cat.”

Rafael looked down at the kitten still squirming in his arms. “Do you remember every kitten that comes through your practice?” he asked mildly before depositing the kitten on the exam table.

“No, but I just did a round of vaccines on Tom Seaver last week.”

Rafael’s expression darkened. “Of course he named the damned cat Tom Seaver,” he seethed, tossing a baleful expression at the kitten before switching it to me. “Do you know who Tom Seaver is?”

“Best player the Mets have ever seen,” I answered promptly, less because I was much of a baseball fan myself and more because I had already heard this from Sonny when he brought the kitten in initially.

Rafael scowled. “I’m a Yankees fan,” he told me dryly. “Not that I care much about baseball but Son— Det. Carisi does love to torture me.”

I made a noncommittal noise, filing Rafael correcting himself before calling Sonny by his first name away for future reference. “So what appears to be wrong with Seaver here?” I asked, stroking the kitten’s soft head.

Something that might charitably be concern flitted across Rafael’s expression. “He was sick this morning.”

“She,” I corrected automatically.

Rafael blinked. “It’s a girl?” I nodded and he sighed and pinched his nose. “And he still named the damn thing Tom Seaver.”

“Sonny seemed to think that Seaver was a gender-neutral name,” I said innocently, trying to stop from laughing.

Rafael rolled his eyes. “Either way,” he said stiffly, “the cat threw up something completely disgusting and since Det. Carisi is away and I was dumb enough to get talked into catsitting, I figured I’d bring her in and make sure she didn’t die before he got back.”

His callous words were belied almost entirely by his tone, which had shifted from caustic to genuine worry. I glanced at the kitten, who was purring and arching against my hand, and back at Rafael. “You didn’t happen to bring a sample of whatever she threw up, did you?”

Rafael’s eyes widened. “You wanted me to _touch_ it?” he asked, horrified.

I couldn’t quite stop my snort at that. “It would be helpful to know what it was so that I could properly diagnose her.”

“I took a picture of it, if that’s helpful,” he said, and when I nodded, he pulled out his cellphone and swiped to unlock it, though not before I saw that the man in the picture on the lockscreen looked awfully familiar. “Here,” he said, wrinkling his nose as he passed his phone over to me.

I took one look at the picture and recognized it immediately. “Ah,” I said, struggling once more to stop from laughing. “Well the good news is, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Seaver. She’s just had her first hairball.”

Rafael looked from the picture back to me, horror clear in his expression. “That’s a hairball?” he asked, sounding disgusted. “I thought hairballs were, you know, balls. Made of hair.”

“A common misconception,” I assured him. “Though if you were to pick that apart, you would find it was made of hair. It’s just generally shaped like the digestive tract.”

Rafael still looked vaguely horrified as he returned his cellphone to the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “So she’s going to do this often?”

I shrugged. “She’s a long-haired cat, which means she’s more susceptible to hairballs. There are some supplements that you can give her that might help break hairballs apart and make them easier to pass. And I would recommend switching her to a dry food specially formulated to help with hairballs once she’s graduated from kitten food.”

“Hairballs,” Rafael muttered as if he hadn’t heard me, running a hand across his face. “Of course. Bad enough that Carisi decided to bring the damn thing home without so much as consulting me, but now she’s going to have hairballs on top of it.”

I decided to play dumb in hopes of getting Rafael to elaborate on his relationship with Sonny. “Consulting you?” I asked. “I thought you were just petsitting.”

Rafael looked startled for a moment before his expression evened out. “I am,” he said coolly. “But did Carisi tell you how he came to adopt the cat?” He had, but I wanted to hear Rafael’s version of the story, so I shook my head. “He was at a crime scene. A young woman had been raped and killed in an abandoned building, and Carisi heard meowing and went looking for the source instead of just doing his damn job.” Rafael’s expression darkened, and I assumed there was more that he wasn’t saying. “Nevermind the fact that the whole building hadn’t been cleared yet and who knows what else might’ve been there. But then he finds the cat and decides to just bring it home, completely compromising the crime scene and ruining the chain of evidence. He could’ve jeopardized my entire case.”

“Your case?”

“Yes,” Rafael said sourly. “I’m an Assistant District Attorney. It’s my job to prosecute these kinds of cases, which is generally a lot easier if the chain of custody is properly maintained.”

I nodded slowly. “And was Seaver somehow involved in the crime?”

Rafael looked exasperated. “That’s not the point—”

“Did the case turn out ok?”

“It turned out just fine, the perp pled guilty, but—”

“So if the cat wasn’t evidence, and if you’re just petsitting, then why does it matter if Sonny took the kitten home?” I asked.

For the first time all morning, Rafael looked at a complete loss of words, opening his mouth and closing it again. I let him sweat for a moment before taking pity on him. “For what it’s worth, Seaver makes Sonny happy. You should’ve seen him in here when he brought her in for her shots. I haven’t seen him smile like that in quite awhile.”

Though something softened just slightly in Rafael’s expression, he still asked, “What’s your point?”

“My point is that if someone cared about Sonny’s happiness, they’d find a way to accept the kitten,” I said evenly. “Especially since she’s, you know, a really fucking adorable kitten.”

Rafael huffed a sigh but also watched the kitten rolling on her back, play-fighting with my hand. “Well, I’ll keep that mind,” he said finally. “In case I run into someone who cares about Carisi’s happiness.”

Rafael Barba, it seemed, was going to be a harder nut to crack than I had first anticipated.

* * *

Luckily, I had several opportunities over the coming months to try again as I saw both Sonny and Rafael both socially and in the clinic with a variety of usual first-time cat owner questions and concerns. I never saw them together, and it became a source of great amusement to not just me but everyone who worked in the clinic as Rafael attempted to come up with increasingly convoluted excuses for why he was the one taking care of Sonny’s cat.

Which was what he continued to call Seaver — always ‘Carisi’s cat’ or, on occasion, ‘that damned cat’.

I knew better than to take him at his word, though. One time when he brought her in for an ear infection, I watched her settle, purring, onto Rafael’s shoulder as he checked his email on his phone, and start grooming the side of his face. “Can you not?” he asked mildly, though he made no attempt to actually stop her, and when she continued, he sighed and muttered, “I’m going to make Carisi take you back”, even as he reached up to pet her gently.

I gathered that when Rafael grumbled about the detective, it was much in the same vein of poorly-hidden affection.

“Are you two not allowed to date?” I asked once as Sonny held Seaver for me to clip her claws. Sonny glanced up at me, his forehead wrinkled in confusion, and I elaborated, “You and Rafael. I’m trying to figure out why he’s still trying to pretend that you’re not together.”

“Oh,” Sonny said with a sigh. “It’s...complicated. There are disclosure forms and such, and we’ve never really, uh, officially put a label on what we’re doing, so…”

He shifted awkwardly and Seaver took the opportunity to whip her head around and sink her fangs into his hand. Sonny swore and let her go and the kitten leapt off the table to go hide in a corner. I sat back and gave Sonny a look. “You haven’t put a label on it?” I repeated, slightly incredulous.

Sonny shrugged, rubbing the tiny indentations on his hand where she hadn’t even broken the skin and making a face. “Yeah, we’re, uh, we’re keeping it casual.”

“Which is why I ran into him sneaking out of your apartment building at five in the morning the other day when I was walking my dogs.”

Sonny sighed again. “Look, he’s…” He trailed off and shook his head. “I dunno. He’s hard to read sometimes. But I’m all in on this. I just need him to decide if he wants to be, too.”

I nodded slowly, bending to scoop Seaver up when she finally reemerged to weave around my ankles. “Well, I know I don’t know him well, but I can tell you that he loves Seaver.”

“Yeah, right,” Sonny scoffed. “He hates the cat.”

“He might say that, but he lets her climb all over his fancy suits and groom him and all sorts of other things,” I said. “And I can’t imagine him doing that if he didn’t care about her. Just like I can’t imagine that he’d bring a colleague’s cat to the vet on multiple occasions unless he happened to care about that colleague.”

Sonny nodded slowly, reaching out to tickle Seaver under her chin, grinning slightly when she pressed her head into his hand. “Are all lesbians this wise, or is it just you?” he asked, glancing up at me.

“Oh, all lesbians,” I assured him.

Sonny laughed and picked Seaver up. “Well, we’ll see,” he said. “Who knows, maybe there’s some disclosure forms in the future after all.”

I personally had little doubt that there would be.

* * *

Unfortunately, the next I saw Seaver, I didn’t have an opportunity to ask what progress, if any, had been made on that front, because the dear little kitten, now more of a dear little cat than anything, was sick.

And after my tests ruled out other likely causes and the biopsy confirmed my fears, I had to deliver the news to Sonny: Seaver had Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP). “And unfortunately,” I said quietly, watching as Sonny stroked Seaver gently, “there is no cure. Once a cat starts exhibiting symptoms, it’s too late to do anything but make her comfortable.”

“She’s so young,” Sonny said, his voice heavy. “Why—”

“She was very likely exposed to it before you even found her,” I told him. “There was nothing more you could’ve done besides everything you have. You gave her a home and more love than some cats know in a lifetime.”

Sonny swallowed, hard, and nodded. “How long?” he asked gruffly.

I sighed. “It could be days, it could be weeks,” I told him.

“Can I take her home?” he asked.

“Of course. Spend as much time with her as you can.”

Sonny managed a small, pained smile. “Yeah, with my eighty-hour work week I’ll somehow manage to spend as much time with her as I can.”

I caught his arm. “Sonny, you working a lot didn’t cause this. You know that, right?”

Though Sonny nodded, he didn’t seem convinced. “Probably didn’t help, though, huh?”

And I knew that there was little I could say that would stop him from blaming himself. Not at that point, anyway. So I let him go and I waited for the call that would inevitably come.

Come it did, about two weeks later, though not from Sonny. Instead, it was Barba who called me, panicked, saying that Seaver hadn’t eaten or drinken for the past two days and now was listless and lethargic. “Bring her to the clinic,” I told him, even though I knew what this meant. “I’ll check her out.”

He hesitated. “It’ll be a bit before I can get there,” he hedged.

“Aren’t you at Sonny’s?”

“No. Sonny is — out of town right now. So I brought Seaver to work with me, since I didn’t want her to be alone.”

I told him to bring her as soon as he could, then, and about a half hour later, Rafael showed up at the clinic, Seaver wrapped in his coat. “Sonny told you she was sick?” I asked as I examined her, the playful, lively kitten from before now completely disappeared.

Rafael nodded, looking drawn and tired. “Yeah, he—” He broke off, his voice unusually hoarse. “He said she didn’t have much time left.”

“She didn’t,” I told him. “And now she definitely doesn’t. Her organs are starting to shut down, and there’s nothing more we can do.”

“So then—”

I swallowed against the lump in my throat. “So then it’s time to talk about euthanasia.”

Rafael shook his head, his eyes widening. “No,” he said sharply. “No, it’s not my place, it’s — it’s not even my cat! It’s Sonny’s cat, and I can’t—”

“Can you call him?” I asked. “See if he can come home for this?”

Rafael shook his head again. “He’s undercover,” he told me, his voice low. “And if I called him back, it could jeopardize the operation. And Sonny wouldn’t forgive me for that.” He paused, his expression twisting. “Of course, I don’t think he’ll forgive me for killing his cat without giving him a chance to say goodbye.”

“I think if there’s anything Sonny wouldn’t forgive you for, it’d be letting Seaver suffer,” I told him softly. “And Rafael, she’s in a lot of pain, and it’s not going to get better.”

Rafael closed his eyes. “So I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” he said, more to himself than to me, and when he opened his eyes, his expression was nothing short of anguished. “He loves that damn cat more than he loves me.”

“I promise you he doesn’t.”

But Rafael just shook his head before taking a deep breath and looking back up at me. “Can I have a few minutes?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said instantly. “Take as much time as you need.”

As I let myself out of the examination room, I reflected on the fact that it never got easier delivering this kind of news, never got easier watching someone struggle to make the decision on when it was time to say goodbye to their beloved pet. And I couldn’t imagine how much more difficult it must be knowing that it was more your partner’s pet than yours.

After about fifteen minutes, I cracked the door to the exam room, poking my head in. At first, I didn’t see Rafael at all, but then I saw him, sitting on the floor, cradling Seaver to his chest and kissing her head. He looked up at me, tears streaming down his face. “Even if Sonny hates me for this, I know he’d hate me more if I let Seaver die alone,” he told me. “So I’m going to — I’m going to hold her while you put her to sleep, and that way I can tell Sonny that she didn’t die alone, that she died being held—” His voice broke. “Held by someone who loves her.”

I didn’t bother trying to stop my own tears at that, and it was through sheer muscle memory alone that I located the proper syringes and knelt down next to where Rafael was sitting. “The first shot will make her fall asleep,” I told him softly. “And the second will stop her heart.”

He nodded and kissed the top of her head once more. “You made Sonny happy,” he told her. “Thank you for that. He loves you, and so do I.”

Then he looked at me and nodded once more. “She’s ready,” he told me.

As a veterinarian, we see animals come and go all the time, but there’s always some that just stay with you, and I knew as I injected her that Seaver was going to be one of them. That until the day I died, I would never forget the sight of the impeccably-dressed Rafael Barba sitting on the floor of my exam room, holding a little dying cat that at one point in time he had denied caring about.

And I knew he’d never forget it, either.

* * *

“Dr. Herriot!”

I poked my head out of the backroom. “You know, this clinic is technically closed at the moment,” I admonished, even if I could quite stop my smile at the sight of the two men standing in the reception area.

“Yeah, but not for us, right?” Sonny asked, beaming.

I just rolled my eyes as I joined him and Rafael. “How can I help you gentlemen?”

“Well…”

Sonny grinned at Rafael, who rolled his eyes. “He’s really lost his mind this time,” he said with a sigh. “But the animal shelter nearby was doing an ‘adopt one kitten, get one free’ event, and, well…”

For the first time, I noticed the two squirming kittens, one held by Sonny, the other by Rafael. I also couldn’t help but note that both men wore identical silver rings on their left ring finger, and I grinned. “Did we go with Mets names again?”

“No,” Barba snapped, at the same time Sonny said happily, “Of course.”

I raised an eyebrow and Barba scowled, even as he gently pet the gray kitten he held. “We each got to name one,” he said. “It was a compromise.” He shot Sonny a nasty look. “Or something like that.”

Sonny held up his kitten, an adorable little orange thing, like he was Rafiki holding up Simba in the Lion King. “Meet Jerry Koosman,” he said happily.

“And that one?” I asked, nodding towards Rafael’s.

“Babe Ruth,” Rafael said imperiously.

I laughed. “Why am I not surprised?” I mused. “Well, bring them on back, and I’ll check them out.”

I followed Sonny and Rafael down the hallway, pausing in the doorway of the exam room to just watch them for a moment. It was the first time I had ever seen them in the same room, and while I had never for a moment doubted it, it was as close to perfection as I could’ve imagined: Sonny grinning as he watched the two kittens wrestle with each other on the exam table, his arm wrapped around Rafael’s waist. Rafael was grinning as well, but he wasn’t looking at the kittens. He had eyes only for Sonny.

For as much as veterinarians have to deal with the death of pets, it is outweighed in an instant by the love animals share with their humans. I have seen all kinds of love, but the love I saw in that exam room was the purest and the best kind.

I was just lucky I got to witness it.

“All right,” I said, stepping into the room. “Let’s get started.”


End file.
